AT LONG LAST, I HAVE IN MY HANDS...
...the greatest biography of Saint-Just ever written! (Not that, y'know, that genre was bursting or anything.)
Anyway, it's the one I used for my grade 12 project, all those years ago, fell madly in love with, and then found out the library had gotten rid of it before I'd had a chance to ask if I could, say, buy it off them.
Obviously, the reason it's so good is because the biographer is so good, but Françoise Kermina (the full title, incidentally, is "Saint-Just: La Révolution aux mains d'un jeune homme") seems to go to a completely different world entirely when she picks a biography subject. Just looking at the bibliography all those years ago made me realize how INTENSE this lady is. For example, she dug through mid-18th century agricultural reports just to be to give the approximate value of the property where SJ was born, at that time. From here, that may sound trivial, but she really fits all the little details quite well into the book.
Mme Kermina is actually quite a well-known biographer (as she should be), but this particularly book was especially hard to get a hold of because it was actually a rather radical (hehe) departure from her usual subject matter: royalty. For example, her best-known biography, I believe, is actually of Marie-Antoinette. Yes, that one. Strange, huh?
At any rate, aside from one itty-bitty quibble*, I CANNOT recommend this book enough as a biography of SJ. It is THE biography, and I am so glad to have it in my hands again after, what, five years?
If anyone is interested (I'm looking at you, josiana!), there are still copies available on, for example, AbeBooks.
D-M
*This quibble being her obvious dislike of Robespierre. Now, that doesn't have all that much bearing on this biography (or I wouldn't like it nearly so much), but she does, from time to time, blame some of Saint-Just's harsher policies on Maxime's "bad influence." This really annoys me, since, when their policies did cross, it was clearly the other way around. It's just that people like SJ and Couthon (and consequently, their independent opinions) have been completely absorbed into the monster of legend that is (still) Robespierre, and I would really have expected Mme Kermina to realize that.
Anyway, it's the one I used for my grade 12 project, all those years ago, fell madly in love with, and then found out the library had gotten rid of it before I'd had a chance to ask if I could, say, buy it off them.
Obviously, the reason it's so good is because the biographer is so good, but Françoise Kermina (the full title, incidentally, is "Saint-Just: La Révolution aux mains d'un jeune homme") seems to go to a completely different world entirely when she picks a biography subject. Just looking at the bibliography all those years ago made me realize how INTENSE this lady is. For example, she dug through mid-18th century agricultural reports just to be to give the approximate value of the property where SJ was born, at that time. From here, that may sound trivial, but she really fits all the little details quite well into the book.
Mme Kermina is actually quite a well-known biographer (as she should be), but this particularly book was especially hard to get a hold of because it was actually a rather radical (hehe) departure from her usual subject matter: royalty. For example, her best-known biography, I believe, is actually of Marie-Antoinette. Yes, that one. Strange, huh?
At any rate, aside from one itty-bitty quibble*, I CANNOT recommend this book enough as a biography of SJ. It is THE biography, and I am so glad to have it in my hands again after, what, five years?
If anyone is interested (I'm looking at you, josiana!), there are still copies available on, for example, AbeBooks.
D-M
*This quibble being her obvious dislike of Robespierre. Now, that doesn't have all that much bearing on this biography (or I wouldn't like it nearly so much), but she does, from time to time, blame some of Saint-Just's harsher policies on Maxime's "bad influence." This really annoys me, since, when their policies did cross, it was clearly the other way around. It's just that people like SJ and Couthon (and consequently, their independent opinions) have been completely absorbed into the monster of legend that is (still) Robespierre, and I would really have expected Mme Kermina to realize that.